Boy, 6, found safe after kidnapping

By Nolan Hicks :
June 22, 2012
: Updated: June 23, 2012 12:01am

Yolanda Gonzalez, great aunt of Simon Colby Weyman, holds pictures of Weyman in front of the house that he was kidnapped from on FM 1518 in Selma Thursday. An Amber Alert has been issued for the six-year-old boy who was living with his grandmother, Mary Gilson, 69. "Things can be replaced, but you can't replace a child," Gonzalez said.

Photo By John Davenport/San Antonio Express-News

Yolanda Gonzalez (left in pink blouse), great aunt of Simon Colby Weyman, speaks to the media in front of the house that he was kidnapped from on FM 1518 in Selma Thursday. An Amber Alert has been issued for the six-year-old boy who was living with his grandmother, Mary Gilson, 69. "Things can be replaced, but you can't replace a child," Gonzalez said.

Photo By Harry Thomas

After a manhunt that lasted much of Friday, a tip led authorities to a 6-year-old boy kidnapped from his grandmother's home in Selma.

Simon Weyman was found unharmed with his mother, Melissa “Muffy” Weyman, 43, at an apartment complex in San Antonio, said Selma City Manager Ken Roberts, citing Selma police officials.

Melissa Weyman had been named as a suspect in the abduction. One of the men believed to be involved in the kidnapping also was arrested, Roberts said. It was unclear what charges they would face.

Multiple police agencies had joined the search for Simon, including the FBI.

“It's just beginning to settle in ... what could happen to my grandson,” Mary Gilson, 69, Simon's paternal grandmother and guardian, said earlier Friday.

The boy and his father had been living with her since October 2010. The father has since moved out, and in May 2011 she obtained a court order to keep his mother away, citing the volatile relationship between his parents.

Roberts described the kidnapping as well-orchestrated. Police believe it involved four masked intruders — three men and a woman — who entered Gilson's mobile home just before 8 p.m. Thursday.

Roberts said two of them entered through an unlocked front door, told Gilson they were with the “district attorney” and then said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

They took the cordless phone that was next to her, pulled out the battery and tossed it to the other side of the room, he said.

Roberts said Gilson tried to stand up, but one of the kidnappers pushed her to the floor as the second man went to the back door to let in two others.

“They knew where my back door was. They knew my house,” Gilson said.

Two of them searched the house and took a few small items, including an ivory carving and a small figurine that was perched near the couch where the boy had been sleeping next to his grandmother, Roberts said.

The four then left with the boy.

The police account of what happened that night differed slightly from Gilson's recounting a day later — she said five people invaded her home, not four. She said she recognized the voice of one of the men, who badgered her with questions and insults.

“He had been calling me on the telephone and leaving me nastygrams like, ‘You're rude, you're crude, you're the devil, God's going to get you and we'll see who's laughing in court, we'll see who will be laughing then'” she said.

According to Gilson, the relationship between her son and Simon's mother, Melissa Weyman, was tumultuous — buffeted by bad tempers, drugs, and booze and partying. And all too often, she said, the needs of their young son would fall by the wayside, as they focused on their habits and the drama of their relationship.

His parents couldn't even be bothered to take him to kindergarten, meaning that when Simon finally started school, he was a year behind. Gilson said.

She received custody of her grandson and Weyman was ordered to attend a drug treatment program and pay child support, Gilson said.

Her son has seen Simon only twice in the past 10 months, she said, and Simon's mother has not attempted to set up a supervised visit with Simon since November.

The look of exhaustion on Gilson's face Friday spoke to an anguish and sadness rooted in something besides the kidnapping trauma she had endured. Her grandson was recently diagnosed with learning difficulties, she said.

“I was thinking, it was just the fighting and the separation, all that emotional trauma ... and with counseling, we're going to fix it. But the school year kept going on and on and he didn't get better,” she said.

Gilson had arranged for Simon to get into a special education class during the summer. He started just this week.